Listen checks through ambient noise

[Ao the Overkitty]

The Listen skill doesn't seem to take into effect the concept of someone wanting to be heard, but being drowned out by ambient noise, just in people not wanting to be heard.

Any ideas on DC modifiers for hearing someone yelling over:
loud bar room chatter?
a band of bards playing?

This is assuming that it will be coupled with the DC modifiers for the person being roughly 20 ft away and behind a wooden door.

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I'm not weird, I'm exotic.

*****

The Overkitty has Spoken! All Hail the Cat Lord!
Ao the Overkitty

 

[The Sigil]

Not "WotC" canon, but published in my PDF book, the Enchiridion of Mystic Music and AFAIK the only hard-and-fast rule out there (haven't seen another). Side notes: Feats are available to boost the maximum range, and the "keeps the ability to discern words and notes at 120' rule" is actually fairly accurate IRL (based on 4 years of experience in a marching band). This is playing/yelling as loud as you can so people can hear you at the greatest possible distance.

Hearing Ranges for Mystic Music Effects

Under normal conditions, hearing range is a 120 foot spread (i.e., it can turn corners and so forth). The spread can make its way through solid items (such as doors and walls) at a cost of 10 “feet” per point of Hardness possessed by the item. Treat areas of silence as though they were impenetrable walls of force for determining the reach of the spread. This is the range at which a single musician can be heard sufficiently well to affect a target with a mystic music ability. Each additional musician beyond the first increases the range of the spread by 40 feet (while not strictly correct physically, it is the “closest fit” for groups of fewer than 8 musicians). If the musician is playing in conditions that would hinder Listen checks, this range is adjusted by –10 feet for each –1 penalty to a Listen check. This means that a musician playing in high winds, for example, where a –4 penalty applies to Listen checks, would have hearing range reduced by 40 feet to a total of 80 feet. A musician may always choose to play more softly and decrease the hearing range.

Note that it is possible to hear the music that a musician is playing outside of this range; it is simply too indistinct to allow the effects of the mystic music to be effective. Anyone attempting to perceive that the musician is playing who is outside of the “hearing range” must succeed at a Listen check (DC 15 + 1 for every 10 feet between the subject and the hearing range). For example, in normal conditions, a character 200 feet away from a musician who attempts to Listen to see if the musician is playing must succeed at a Listen check against DC 23 (he is 80 feet outside of the hearing range of 120 feet, so the DC is 15+8).

--The Sigil

 

[Ruvion]

Use Listen check to "hear" (take notice of the noise/speech in question) and Concentration check to "really hear" (to fret out what is being said). For example, in a social function you wanna overhear what the duke is saying to his right-hand man, drowned out by the crowd near him: you make a Listen check of say DC 15 to single out what the duke is saying from the ambient crowd noise, followed by a Concentration check of DC 20 to distinguish and filter out what the duke is saying.

 

[LostSoul]

Use Listen check to "hear" (take notice of the noise/speech in question) and Concentration check to "really hear" (to fret out what is being said).

I don't really like that idea. Concentration is based on Con, and this use should be based on Wis. And somebody with a high Listen should be able to hear better than somebody with a high Concentration.

I'd up the DC by 2 for background noise, more if the noise was really loud. Gotta love that +2/-2 rule.

 

[nameless]

This is also frequently an issue with sense motive. If someone is telling the truth, but it is either hard to believe or coming from an untrustworthy source, a sense motive check is probably in order. On one hand, high ranks in Sense Motive would likely be better at determining the truth. On the other hand, low Sense Motive is more likely to believe what is being told to them if it is a lie.

The source is trying their best to sound plausible and is in fact being genuine. Likely a person with high bluff or diplomacy skill would be good at this kind of communication, as well.

If it requires a successful roll on the part of the Motive Senser, then the bluffer/diplomat would prefer a low roll (And it is sensed that the speaker is telling the truth about what they say).

If it requires a successful roll on the part of the bluffer/diplomat, then he would prefer to roll high and the senser to roll low (And 'trick' the senser into taking for truth what is, in fact, true).

Innuendo has the same problem. A skilled Innuendo speaker would be able to make his message difficult to intercept while still being easy to recieve. He is trying to make a low DC for one target and a high DC for others. It makes sense thematically, but the rules fall short.